2024 competition begins!
CPI and PPI coming up this week.
Quick summary:
The Q1 competition is now open. Running for 12 weeks. Now is a great time to enter the competition - click here.
After what has been an exciting year for Oraclum Capital with a final 19% return YTD, we are ready for new challenges.
The first one already starts this week, where we get the CPI and PPI numbers, and we end the week with bank earnings. Economic data is becoming very important into figuring out what comes next.
Our paid subscribers got a detailed overview of our expectations coming into next year. The assumptions stay the same, but some new interesting developments came from last week’s FOMC minutes. We will discuss this on Saturday, as well as the implications from this week’s inflation data.
The competition
Happy new year, dear readers!
We’re back, the competition is live again. Big congrats once again to all our winners!
Some housekeeping first. We have reached out to all Q4 winners and will reach out to all annual winners this week. If you haven’t yet heard from us, let us know in the comments or by responding to the email. The annual rewards allocation (based on the fund’s profits) has been determined, and the payouts will start to go out next week. You’ll get all the info in the emails.
For all you new subscribers, you are more than welcome to give it a try. The idea is simple. You make predictions each week on where the S&P500, the Dow, the QQQ (NASDAQ 100 ETF), the VIX (volatility index), the AAPL stock, and the 10 year yield will end up by Friday 4pm ET of the same week.
Survey opens up each Tuesday at 8am ET, and closes at 8am ET on Wednesday. It’s all about where you think the market will end up, and where other people that you follow on social media or hang out with think the market will end up. A bit of wisdom of crowds. Our our survey website you have a video of me explaining how the whole thing works. Also, here’s Scott and myself guiding you through the new version of the survey that came out in Q3 last year.
It is great to start early and be consistent. Consistency is key in trying to win the competition and take home cash prizes. And these are not small. We allocate $5000 to the top 20 participants each quarter (so $20,000 in total, where each quarterly winner gets $1000), plus a 3% share of ORCA’s profits at the end of the calendar year to the annual winners.
As the fund grows its AUM, so will its prizes. Soon enough this will become a competition where you might earn yourself a nice additional income for 10-15 minutes of weekly predicting. And you’re following markets anyway, so why not give it a try?
Looking forward to having you on board!
Competition is tough (last year’s first and second place got separated by less than a point), but we’re sure there’s a lot of enthusiasts out there who have a good feel about other traders and the weekly market swings.
Markets last week
There was no survey last week, and we did no trading, but the markets still moved in an interesting fashion. The first week was a very steady move down across the board. A very similar feel to the start of 2022. Gradual selling of both bonds and stocks, some of it even triggered by FOMC minutes.
Just as the bears were beginning to regain confidence, yesterday triggered a super strong rally, SPX +1.4%, NDX +2.1%, TLT +1%. Only slightly shy from making up all the lost ground from Jan 2nd.
Will it continue into the rest of the week? We get CPI inflation on Thursday along with jobless claims, and then PPI inflation on Friday.
Economic data is becoming as important as ever into figuring out how and when the Fed might cut rates. Each data point is being highly scrutinized.
To spice things up, we also get bank earnings on Friday for Q4. JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, BNY Mellon, and BlackRock (not a bank, but financial institution nevertheless, facing similar earnings headwinds and tailwinds). In addition, Delta and UnitedHealth Group report their earnings as well.
So with the earnings season upon us, January options expiration coming up next week, and the FOMC and QRA from the Treasury in the final week, it’s going to be a fast paced and brutal start of the year. Brace yourselves.
That’s what this competition is all about. Keep an eye on what might move markets in any given week, and think about how other people might react.
And good luck!
…join the $20,000 competition!
Join our survey competition to get an opportunity to participate in our quarterly ($5000) and annual (3% of our profits) prize distributions:
DISCLAIMER: Neither the survey nor any of the contents of this website can act as investment advice of any kind. The results of the survey need not correspond to actual market preferences or trends, so they should be interpreted with caution. Oraclum Capital, LLC (Henceforth ORCA) is a management company responsible for running the ORCA BASON Fund, LP, and for organizing a survey competition each week, where it invites the subscribers to its newsletter (this website) to participate in an ongoing prediction competition. The information presented on this website and through the survey competition should under no circumstances be used to solicit any investment advice, nor is it allowed to be of commercial use to any of its readers. The survey and this website contain no information that a user may use as financial or investment advice. All rights reserved. Oraclum Capital LLC.
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